Twilight
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: What if Alkaid wasn't PKed? Through a series of bizarre twists and turns of fate, the story continues... HaseoxAlkaid.
1. Phase

_Sender: Unknown_

_Subject: About Sirius_

_If you want to know more about what happened to Sirius come to Θ Hidden Forbidden Battlefield._

--

Upon entering the area, Alkaid all but ran down the steps, stopping before a lone individual, who's back was to her at the moment.

"So, you're the one who sent me that email, right?"

"That's right."

Alkaid's eyes widened as she recognized who this 'informant' was. She didn't exactly remember the name, but she DID recognize this woman from Kestrel, and it was easy to realize there was something very, very wrong with her character. Her entire left side was covered in this weird, redish black goop, and her entire left side was a complete, mangled mess.

Not to mention that crazed look in her eyes.

Dread coiled in the pit of her stomach.

"Hey wait a sec...you're from Kestrel, aren't you?"

A sardonic smirk twisted Bordeaux's face, then-

BZZT!

"Huh?" Chika frowned, the viewscreen before her going black suddenly. "Hey! What gives?!" But when the redhead removed her visor, she was also greeted with blackness as well. A loud peal of thunder shook the house, now followed by a flash of lightning, then darkness again. "Mom! What the heck?!"

"Sorry dear!" A voice called from downstairs. "Power's out!"

_'No, duh.'_

"Fine, I'll get some candles-Ack!"

Unfortunately, she'd forgotten about all the wirse, and in getting up from her seat, she actually fell back out of her chair, taking half her gear with her as everything came unplugged at the exact same time. All at once, the virtual equiptment seemed to just jump at her, ending with a loud:

CRASH!

"Ow!"

--

Angry didn't describe Haseo.

_Furious did._

He'd sent Alkaid an email before rushing after her, but he hadn't exactly been prepared to find Bordeaux waiting here for him. Talking to her hadn't worked, in fact, she'd goaded him into the fight, and so here they were, trying to rip each other a new one.

"Now tell me, where's Alkaid?!" Haseo all but roared, pinning her down at last.

"Like I said, I don't care!" She cackled, the AIDA on her arm swelling to gigantic proportions. "Now die!"

Springing back, the adept Rogue narrowly evaded impalement, spinning away from a thousand sickly black hands, all reaching out to strangle the life from him, neverending never resting. It wasn't so much that Bordeaux had _power_ on her side, but it was the sheer number of those hands that threatened to overwhelm him. "What the hell did you do to her?! Where is she?!"

_Were_ overwhelming him.

Twirling his scythe about his waist like a mid level halo, Haseo successfully swatted aside the first, second, and third wave of hand like spears, but eventually was unable to account for the sheer number of enemy projectiles.

Bordeaux laughed as he soon became pinned, with only his left hand free.

"Gotcha!"

Haseo frowned.

_"Come on... come on...I'm.. right... here...!"_ He felt the rush almost immediately, the symbols appearing all over his character, flooding him with the forbidden power. A slight smirk flipped his frown upside down, then with a loud scream of "SKEITH!", The terror of death transformed into the massively powerful avatar, looming over Bordeaux as if she were little more than an ant compared to him.

However, Bordeaux smirked and her eyes flashed a deep violet color.

"Great! That's great! Now...

The AIDA crawling over her skin, until-

"Let's 'love' each other even more!"

When at last the giant wave of AIDA receded, the epitaph user found himself face to face with-

BZZT!

"Wha?" Ryou frowned recognizing the dull thud of equiptment failure, mere moments before the entire system went dead. Removing his own visor, he found the room darkened, not a single light to be found, but in the bright flash of lightning, he was able to see that it was nearly midnight.

"Power's out." He muttered to himself, banging his head on the desk. "Greaaaaat."

**--**

**Meh, this is just a lil something I decided to cook up, mainly because I wasn't too fond of Alkaid becoming a lost one. The story will be basically regular canon, but with Alkaid around, well, it outta be more interesting. Review please!**


	2. Truth

The power must've come back at some point, because the smell of breakfast awoke Chika the next morning.

Bacon, eggs, along with the distinctive scent of miso ramen, set aside just for her.

Her favorite.

"Come and get it sleepyhead!"

The sound of a spatula, ringing against the frying pan proved to be an unbearable din, forcing Chika to wake so she could kill the home made alarm clock. Rolling out of bed, she nearly tripped over her virtual headset, groaning when the racket grew even louder. "Alright, alright I'm _up_!"

As if he heard her, the voice replied.

"Then get down here before I eat your ramen! We can't let anything go to waste, you know!"

Rolling her eyes, Chika poked her head out the door and stuck out her tongue.

"Gimme a sec will ya?! I'm not decent!"

_'Sheesh,' _She sighed to herself, slamming the door. Typical dad, hollering at her first thing in the morning, going on and on about how valuable food was, but then again he was a world class chef, so Chika wasn't really one to complain about it.

"That is, unless you're too busy instant messaging that _boy_...Unbidden, the memory of the 'honeysuckle incident' rushed over her, leaving her a face a brilliant, burning crimson to match her hair.

"Daaaaaad! This has nothing to do with that!"

There it was, the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. Trailing off like he always did, knowing it would provoke her-

And in a flash Chika all but flew down the stairs, snatched a plate, piled it with bacon, eggs, then with a defiant shout of: "Back off dad! The ramen's mine!" snatched the cup of noodles away from him at the very last second, just as his fingers were curling around the plastic cover of the cup.

But he just laughed, sat down at the table, and acted as if nothing were wrong.

This was normal for their daughter.

"By the way, Chika, that package arrived. I think its in your room."

"Eh?"

Distracted, she turned to her mother, who smiled knowingly.

"But then again, you probably tripped over it last night-

"No way!"

The door slammed shut behind her, and she was gone, breakfast and all.

--

After Chika, that is, _Alkaid_ finally showered, changed, and started in on her unusual breakfast, she finally remembered to log into 'The World'.

But of course, she had to plug everything back in, set up the M2D and open her parcel, which had in fact, been buried underneath all her equiptment. There was a large dent in the packaging, probably caused by falling facefirst into it.

Plastic and cardboard flew as she tore it open.

A small frown marred her face as she pulled out what looked like two wristbands, from which wires hung, obviously ment to connect to the console itself. CC corp's newest product, the immersion system. Supposedly you were able to 'better experience the world' with it or something, but at this point, she was just eager to test it out.

An email awaited her.

Frowning, the redhead paused, slurped up the last of her rame, and peered intently at her most recent mail.

"Haseo, huh?" She sighed to herself, guiding the pointer to the icon, and depressing the trigger. "I wonder if he got my message...

After the loading screen panned off, A simple line awaited her.

_Come to Mac Anu. There's...something I need to tell you._

Short, bland, and to the point.

No surprise there.

"Why?" She typed, with one hand, slipping on the bands with the other, and linking them with the M2D. "Did something happen or what?"

A few seconds later, a reply came.

_Alkaid?! You're okay?!_

"Why wouldn't I be?" Chika typed back, starting to become more than a little worried by this point.

His next question only made it worse.

_Did anything...weird happen when you went to the lost ground?_

Sighing, Chika set down the cup of ramen, cracked her knuckles, and began typing her response.

Breakfast would have to wait.

"No. But that email almost got me PKed by this jacked up Kestrel member. I mean, she was totally freaky! Black spots and eveything, not to mention nuts! The power went out before she could get me though, so I guess I got lucky. LOL"

After pressing send, Chika thought he'd logged out or something, the wait was so long.

Then:

_Hurry up and log in! I'll be waiting at Mac Anu!_

"Sheesh," She muttered to herself, slipping on the M2D, blinding white light rushing past her eyes, then with a flick of her wrist, she'd logged in.

"What's with him...?

--

Alkaid, however, showed no such signs of irritation, as she approached the Chaos Gate, still maintaining her confident swagger. But the adept

_Meet me at Mac Anu's Guild._

_'A flash mail?' _Sure enough, just as she turned to the right, there was someone warping right now. Shrugging her shoulders, the twin blade entered the keywords, and with a flash of blue, found herself standing in the streets of the city.

People milled about here and there, occasionally getting in her way as the redhead snaked through the crowd. At last, she saw someone who, from this distance at least, somewhat resembled the adept rogue.

"Alright Haseo, what're we doing here anyways? It not like this is a very good place for leveling... However, beneath the calm, semi-arrogant facade, a trickle of fear crept into her heart. Haseo was easy to spot in the crowd of players and NPC'shis grey, silvery hair, and black armor making him a dead giveaway.

But his expression was one she had only seen once before.

He looked so sad, yet so very, very angry, both at the same time.

Wading through the crowd, the infamous 'Terror of Death', held out an armored hand, almost as if he were offering a gift.

"Here." He handed her what she already recognized as a guild key, its dull, bronze facets gleaming dimly in the perpetual evening sunset.

The words RAVEN were inscribed upon its features.

"What's this for?" She gave him a puzzled look.

"Do you want to know... the truth?" He turned his back to her as he said this, hiding his expression from her.

"The truth?"

Now she was really confused, but the meaning sank in with such force that she froze.

"You mean...what happened to Sirius? Why he changed so suddenly?"

"...Yeah."

Brown eyes narrowed, and all at once, she was suspicious.

"You...you know something, don't you?!"

He nodded, but it pained him.

"Then spill it!"

In response, he beckoned to the Guild door.

"C'mon. I have to show you something."

The doors slid open as he walked past her without another word.

And Alkaid ran after him.

--

"Whoa...what is this?"

This went WAY beyond what any guild, especially a level one guild, was suppposed to look like!

"Hmm. Ordinarily, I would say Haseo...who is this?" The man imitated a frown, turning away from the hovering sphere to peer intently at the former emperor. " Or perhaps 'Why have you brought a normal player here?'" A small smirk now traced the lips of the tan, bespectacled man. "But this case is indeed different."

"...I owe her." He mumbled at last. "So please...just tell her."

"Who's this, your guild master?"

"You might say that." The man spoke with a hint of amusement in his voice. "But that, is another matter for another time. I take it you've come here, wondering about the condition of the current Holy Palace emperor, Sirius, have you not?"

"Well...yeah."

"Do you truly wish to know?" Yata persisted, slightly scowling at the redhead. "Once you hear what I have to say, you must never speak of it, AIDA, the Eight Phases of the Morganna factor, or any ther matters of this guild, to anyone outside of G.U. Do I make myself perfectly clear, _former_ Demon Palace emperor?"

Ignoring the stinging rebuke, and the cutting off of her other question as to just what G.U. was, what this AIDA thing was, Chika, and therefore Alkaid, nodded. She had to know, she just had to!

"Deal. Tell me everything."

Haseo sighed.

"Alkaid...

Yata chuckled.

"Then let me explain to you, just what AIDA is...


End file.
